Time, Saving Afghanistan’s Art: “That anything is left at all is in large part due to the efforts of museum director Omar Khan Massoudi, his staff, and a small group of concerned archeologists and politicians. In 1988, they secretly moved the highlights of the collection to a vault in the Central Bank at the presidential [...]
Entries Tagged as 'afghanistan'
Wired: How Technology Almost Lost the War
December 3rd, 2007
“Timers from washing machines and dryers, like these for sale at a parts store in Baghdad’s Rasheed Street district, are used by insurgents to detonate improvised explosive devices.” Noah Shachtman, How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social — Not Electronic: “(…) The Defense Department wasn’t blind to the power [...]
Tags: afghanistan · iraq · networks · usa · war
The Taliban’s Secret Photos
August 25th, 2007
Slate V: “A Magnum photo essay. During his coverage of the fall of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in 2002, photographer Thomas Dworzak discovered a stash of pictures showing male Taliban members in curious, effeminate poses.”
Tags: afghanistan · gender · homosexuality · islam · photography · taliban
Jeremy Scahill – Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army
August 1st, 2007
There are 48,000 ‘security contractors’ in Iraq, working for private companies growing rich on the back of US policy. But can it be a good thing to have so many mercenaries operating without any democratic control? An extract from Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, by Jeremy Scahill.
Tags: afghanistan · blackwater · iraq · politics · usa · war